Last year this blog highlighted the University of Virginia’s erasure of its Union army veterans in the aftermath of the Civil War. Brian Neumann’s posts about William Meade Fishback, James Overton Broadhead, and Joseph Cabell Breckinridge remind us that Virginians understood their obligations to their state, to the South, and to the Union differently, leading neighbors, friends, and classmates to choose differ
The UVA Law Library and the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History are pleased to announce the C.S.S. Alabama Claims Cases Transcription Project. The over 100 documents in this collection center on the life and death of the British-built commerce raider C.S.S. Alabama and her sister ships, the C.S.S. Florida and the C.S.S. Shenandoah.
The Nau Center has only recently begun to recover the stories and experiences of those alumni and students who fought for the Union during the Civil War. PhD candidate Brian Neumann has already explored some of those stories in blog posts about Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, James Overton Broadhead, and William Meade Fishback.
In August 1864, three men named John Allen, James H. Garland, and George W. Lewis enlisted in Company A of the 127th Regiment United States Colored Troops (USCT). They were young—giving their ages as 17, 20, and 26, respectively on their enlistment papers—and all lived in Mercer County in western Pennsylvania. They were from a local community named “Pandenarium,” although all three had actually been born far to the south in Albemarle County, Virginia.
In the decades following the Civil War, the University of Virginia erased its Union veterans from its history, constructing a narrative of unwavering Confederate commitment. The few writers who mentioned these UVA Unionists insisted that they were northern students, thereby reaffirming the image of southern unity. In 1906, Captain William W.
As the seven Lower South states seceded in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s election, Unionists in the Upper and Border South struggled to hold their fracturing country together. Many of these Unionists insisted the country could endure “half slave and half free”—as it had for more than eighty years—and they worked tirelessly to contain the crisis by finding a middle ground in the debates over slavery. Their efforts failed, however, because southern secessionists and hard-line Republicans refused to compromise, but also because of divisions within the Unionist ranks.
Now that the summer is over, I can safely say that working at Richmond National Battlefield Park was incredibly rewarding and enjoyable. Although I faced some challenges working as woman in the male-dominated field of Civil War history, it was so wonderful to spend the day talking about my passion for Civil War history with most of our visitors. Throughout the course of this internship, I learned so much about the field of public history and historical interpretation.
In October 1913, the Staunton Daily News published an editorial criticizing the lack of attention paid to Virginia students who served in the Union military during the Civil War. In the preceding decade, the University of Virginia had celebrated its Confederate alumni by hosting reunions, casting medals, and dedicating a plaque on the Rotunda. The university had compiled a list of just more than 2,000 Confederate alumni, but it had made no attempt to honor its Union veterans and rarely acknowledged their existence.
In 1905, forty years after the end of the Civil War, an Albemarle-born, African-American veteran named Frank Lee applied to receive an increase in his pension. He had served as a young man in the 5th Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry, a black regiment that fought for the Union cause. Because of his service, he was eligible for government assistance in the form of pensions, but he needed to verify one thing: his date of birth. Frank Lee set out to clarify.
Greetings from Richmond National Battlefield Park!
Despite the massive number of bugs, sweltering heat, and possible ghosts, working for the Richmond National Battlefield Park has been an absolute dream. As the Nau Center’s summer intern at the park, I primarily work at two of our thirteen sites: our main visitor center at Historic Tredegar and at the Cold Harbor Battlefield. Additionally, I spend two days a week working on my research project, which focuses on Virginia women during the secession crisis and subsequent convention.
